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Place in Shakespeare's Coriolanus: the Intersection of Geography, Culture, and Identity. Wayne State University English Faculty Research Publications English 1-1-2018 Place In Shakespeare’s Coriolanus: The nI tersection Of Geography, Culture, And Identity Richard Raspa Wayne State University, [email protected] Recommended Citation Raspa, Richard. "Place in Shakespeare's Coriolanus: The nI tersection of Geography, Culture, and Identity" (Author's Accepted Manuscript). Mediterranean Studies, vol. 26 no. 2, 2018, p. 213-228. Project MUSE https://muse.jhu.edu/article/710863. Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/englishfrp/28 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Research Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. PLACE IN SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS: THE INTERSECTION OF GEOGRAPHY, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY Richard Raspa, Wayne State University ABSTRACT: Coriolanus, the last of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies (1608), continues to draw on the poet’s fascination with Rome and the Mediterranean as places. In this paper, I will explore the impact of Rome on the characters of Coriolanus from three perspectives: place as an incarnation of values, as an internal cognitive and emotional map, and as a nest of belonging. KEYWORDS: Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies, cultural geography, Shakespeare’s Mediterranean, Shakespeare’s mothers and sons, ancient Rome and early modernism, psychoanalysis and Shakespeare’s heroes, women in early modern drama, homoerotism in Shakespeare’s warrior heroes Coriolanus, the last of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies (1608), continues to draw on the poet’s fascination with Rome and the Mediterranean as places. This allure is apparent in his three earlier tragedies set in Rome: Titus Andronicus (1594), Julius Caesar (1599), and Antony and Cleopatra (1606), as well as in the poem The Rape of Lucrece (1594) and the final romance Cymbeline (1609). Coppelia Kahn suggests that Shakespeare recognized connections between ancient Rome and Britain (Kahn 1997:14).He had access to chronical histories of England, such as Raphael Holinshed’s, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577), Geoffrey of Monmouth’s, The History of the Kings of England (1136), as well as Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579). Shakespeare could find in such texts claims that Britain and Rome share ancestors in the figures of Aeneas, the founder of Rome, and his descendant, Brutus, said to be the founder of Britain. Other reminders of the Roman presence in England include the old Roman Wall that marked the city limits of London, and Hadrian’s Wall, which was the northern military boundary of the Roman Empire in the second century CE. For Shakespeare, Rome mirrors early modern England’s political struggles and human dilemmas. As Robert Miola writes, Shakespeare recounts Author’s Accepted Manuscript. Published version © Penn State University Press: Raspa, Richard. "Place in Shakespeare's Coriolanus: The Intersection of Geography, Culture, and Identity." Mediterranean Studies, vol. 26 no. 2, 2018, p. 213-228. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/710863. Deposited by permission. Raspa, Richard: Place in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Author’s Accepted Manuscript stories of Rome and the Mediterranean that embody heroic traditions. He does so “by combining various sources, reworking the political motifs and exploring thematic implications of three Roman ideals: constancy, honor, and pietas,” which means showing high regard for parents, the state, and gods (Miola 1983: 16). Roman history permeated British culture and education. Beginning in elementary school, young Britons studied Latin texts and Roman codes of conduct and systems of thinking in the classics of Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Livy, Terence, Seneca, Plautus, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, and others. Their ideals, however, were not always realized, as Miola notes: “Rome is a noble place of high heroic deeds and honor as well as a sordid center of selfish scheming and political infighting.” (Miola 1983, 64). In order for Shakespeare to look deeply into the mirror Rome affords, he selected transformative periods in Rome’s 1000 years of history when it was the preeminent power in the Mediterranean. Each of the four Roman tragedies deals with one profound moment in that history. While Coriolanus is Shakespeare’s final Roman tragedy (1608), it dramatizes events from the earliest time frame in the 6th century BCE. The play begins after a youthful Caius Marcius Coriolanus emerges as a fierce warrior in the revolt against the last Tarquin king. With the fall of the monarchy, the Roman Republic rises. At the other end of the time frame is Titus Andronicus, his first Roman tragedy, 1592. This play portrays the decadent Roman Empire in the fifth century CE in its final days of imperial decline. In between are two plays that deal with other monumental turning points in Roman history. Julius Caesar treats the events of 44 BCE, when Brutus, a descendant of Britain’s legendary founder, leads a group of senators to assassinate Julius Caesar. This event hastens the collapse of the Roman Republic and leads to the short-lived Second Triumvirate as the new form of government. In Antony and Cleopatra, the Second Triumvirate falls apart. When Antony takes up with Cleopatra and loses the war with Octavius (in 31 BCE), Rome becomes an Empire with Octavius Caesar (a.k.a. Augustus) as its emperor. These dramatic shifts in Rome’s systems of government from monarchy to republic to empire offer a way for Shakespeare to write about the politics of power and legitimacy. In the late 16th century, the British were uneasy about the continuity of the monarchy. Queen Elizabeth, the Tudor Virgin Queen, was over 50 years old and without husband or child when Shakespeare began writing the Roman tragedies in the 1590s. She died in © Penn State University Press, muse.jhu.edu/article/710863. Deposited by permission. Raspa, Richard: Place in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Author’s Accepted Manuscript 1603 before Shakespeare completed them. Thus, Shakespeare’s Roman plays mirror Elizabethan times, for the plays deal with leadership and crucial transmissions of power in the state. The questions that alarmed the Romans are the same questions that haunt Shakespeare’s plays. Political transitions in Rome provoke timeless questions when citizens fear survival: Will Rome fall apart or continue to be the center of the Mediterranean universe? Will I hold onto what I have or lose it? How will this change in politics hurt me? These issues of survival, identity, and power that accompany the political shifts carry with them hopeful ideals as well as betrayal, conspiracy, and death. Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies reveal the fragility of political forms and the temptations of power and its abuse that may undermine them. He dramatizes in the play these issues in conversations of individuals and families who are tragically entangled in the political outcomes. Indeed, one can summarize Coriolanus as a duet of interlaced conversations. The first concerns the suitability of Coriolanus for the elected position of consul, the highest leadership office in the democratic Roman Republic. The second conversation is about the terror of Coriolanus as an enemy waging combat against Rome. Everybody in the two dominant social groups in Rome participates in these discussions. In Acts 1, 2, and 3, Cominius, the outgoing consul and head of the army, and Menenius, powerful senator, lead the aristocrats who are small in number to support Coriolanus because they believe his astonishing military contributions have earned him the highest leadership position in the Republic. In contrast, the tribunes Sicinius and Brutus, corral the plebeians or common people who are the majority population into opposing him because of Coriolanus’ undisguised contempt for the commoners, and their fear that if elected consul, Coriolanus would rescind their voting rights and the power of the tribunes. The conversations flow in all the public places of the city and in the interior spaces of homes in Acts I and 2. Then at the end of Act 3, threats of violence and sedition inflect the conversations that result in charging Coriolanus with treason and banishing him. Enraged, Coriolanus denounces the plebeians and tribunes. He becomes the thing he was charged with, Rome’s traitor, by joining the Volscian army led by Aufidius to wage war upon his former country. In Acts 4 and 5, conversations in Rome are about the terror of Coriolanus as an enemy and its catastrophic implications for the continuity of the Republic. Fearful Romans send Cominius and Menenius © Penn State University Press, muse.jhu.edu/article/710863. Deposited by permission. Raspa, Richard: Place in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Author’s Accepted Manuscript as emissaries to placate Coriolanus and dissuade him from warfare, to no avail. Coriolanus refuses to speak with them. Only one conversation ensues and it precipitates the tragedy ending the play. In Act 4, Volumnia appears in the enemy camp with Coriolanus’s wife and young son. Kneeling before her son with great presence, Volumnia commands the attention of Coriolanus and sets the terms of their discourse. Rather than political matters of the state, Volumnia conducts a moral discourse on the duties a child owes to a parent and sways her son to mediate a so-called honorable peace between Romans and Volscians. When Coriolanus grants his mother’s suit, he seals his tragic future. He has betrayed
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